Similar Gesta Regum Anglorum, The Church Historian, The Life of King Alfred, Anglo‑Saxon Chronicle, The Earliest English K | ||
The Historia Regum ("History of the Kings") is a historical compilation attributed to Symeon of Durham, which presents material going from the death of Bede until 1129. It survives only in one manuscript compiled in Yorkshire in the mid-to-late 12th century, though the material is earlier. It is an often-used source for medieval English and Northumbrian history.
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Provenance
The text survives in one manuscript, Corpus Christi College Cambridge, MS 139, folios 51v-129v, written down in the late 12th century. Even though this manuscript names Symeon as the author in an incipit and an explicit, Symeon's authorship of the work is nevertheless doubted or thought to be spurious by modern historians. Besides not being an original historical work, reasons of internal evidence make it highly unlikely that the Historia Regum was written by the same author as the Libellus de Exordio, and the latter is thought by its latest editor to have been authored by Symeon.